turmoil. Last year, President Juvenal Muise was assassinated and
another deadly earthquake hit throwing the country into chaos, and
the crisis has only deepened. In recent months. Gangs have overrun
parts of the country, kidnapping citizens and foreigners and putting
up blockades to stop the flow of critical supplies like fresh water
and food.
A new cholera outbreak has killed hundreds as hospitals have struggled
to provide basic services and the U. N estimates that nearly half
of the population is going hungry Crisis has many calling for international
intervention, even as the United States continues to deport Haitian
migrants back to the island nation. For more, we turn to Jacqueline
Charles, who covers the Caribbean and Haiti for the Miami Herald.
It's good to have you here.
Thanks for having me and you have reported extensively on the violent
gangs that now control much of Haiti. Give us a sense of the growing
security crisis there.
It is indeed a growing security crisis. I mean, we're seeing reports
of massacres that are happening not just in Puerto Prince, but also
outside of quarter prints just a few days ago, um in one particular
town, Um, you have at least a dozen people who have been killed 11
of them. Presidents were massacred by armed gangs. The top individual
was actually a gang member, according to the mayor interview I did
with him.
But people are living in fear. We had a two month blockade of the
country's cheap oil terminal. And while that is no longer the case,
the reality is that kidnappings continue. So that's the gang violence
and patients really don't feel safe at all. How is the country and
how is the international community working to address this crisis?
Well, the United States, you know pen to resolutions at the UN Security
Council. One was for sanctions. Um the other one was for an outside
force the request of the information government to come in and to
provide some assistance to the Haitian national Police. The U. N
did unanimously adopts sanctions to first time in five years, the
only one in this hemisphere. But the reality is is that the request
for an armed intervention force to go into Haiti right now we're
not seeing it. It remains.
Install at the United Nations Security Council. We're hearing that
there just aren't any takers to us supports this, but it doesn't
want to lead this effort, and so far we don't have any country stepping
up and saying, Hey, we will go in Haiti is the poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere, as you well know, due in large part to foreign
intervention, foreign debt, given that I mean it's foreign intervention
now is given that you know that that fraught history is that a real
option?
I don't know if we can say that Haiti's you know poverty. Um, is
the result of foreign intervention. I mean, yes, Hideous had, um
different countries intervening, including in 1915 with the United
Nations with the United States that went into Haiti and it went in,
Um, and it created the present day you know, tax collection agencies
and other structures that exist in Haiti today are a result.
Of the U. S involvement in Haiti 1915. That remains a controversial,
um, point of contention. For some people, they see it differently,
including the most recently by United Nations peacekeepers. When
you say the Haitians do you want a foreign occupation? Yeah, they're
going to tell. You know they see their country as being sovereign
despite the problems, But when you say the Haitians Hey, do you want
some assistance for your security forces? You will hear from people.
Yes, we're not talking about the politicians or the people that have
the microphone. We're talking about the mother who was worried about
her child.
Being raped or killed or kidnapped. When that child has to go to
school, we have had Children who have not been able to go to school.
We have a lost generation in this country.
And so you know, and I'm responsible for this, too. As a journalist.
I mean, we don't talk enough to the people on the ground that people
who don't have access to the television stations or the radio stations,
and they're the people that are enduring the suffering. In the meantime,
there is a group of House Democrats who are urging the Biden administration
to extend immigration protected immigration status. For Haitians.
It's known as TPS. Tell us more about that.
After last year's assassination of Haitian presidential Normally
East Abided administration did extend temporary protected status,
which basically give nationals of the countries that are designated
to the like the right to live in the United States temporarily But
to also work here legally and what we're seeing here is that there
were a number of patients. Thousands of patients who arrived after
Um, that designation, which one of the effective cut off date was
July 29th. So that did not involve the people who left after the
deadly earthquake, which was five weeks after the assassination or
the flows that we have been seeing, coming to the shores of Florida
and Puerto Rico on boats were in the largest Haitian migration crisis
in 18 years. And so what? Advocates are saying that they want to
have it redesignated so that you can have additional individuals
who can qualify. Otherwise they're here. They're undocumented there.
At a status and they don't know you know what's going to happen to
them next?
Jacqueline Charles covers the Caribbean and Haiti for the Miami Herald.
Thanks so much for your time.